Kele Goodwin's album 'Hymns' a prolonged piece of work riddled with interruptions

We've heard of magical sessions in which classic albums such as Van Morrison's "Astral Weeks" are recorded over the course of several days; but more often the records we love are prolonged labors riddled with interruptions and defer to both the basic necessities of life as well as the significantly bigger ones. Such is the case for

Some of that "life" was pretty standard; Ogilvie, who produced the album, was often busy touring with his own band, causing frequent breaks in the process. But on Sept. 11, 2008, Goodwin, while rough-housing with a friend, put his arm through a plate-glass window, cutting it down to the bone and through several nerves, requiring extensive surgery and causing him to lose the use of his arm for months. A month-and-a-half later Goodwin's daughter was born. He also went through a breakup with his daughter's mother during this time. The songs on the album are old enough to be focused on other topics, but Goodwin admits, "There were some heavy emotions going on when we were recording, so maybe some of that bled through."

Goodwin moved to Portland from Juneau, Alaska, in 2002 to go to school. "That didn't really work out," he recalls, "but my parents bought me a guitar before I moved here and that ended up working out. It took nine years, but I finally ended up making an album."

He began writing music and meeting musicians who encouraged him to continue. Several of these appear on Goodwin's album such as Laura Gibson, Alela Diane and Ogilvie.

is the most immediate comparison; both employ whisper-soft vocals over equally delicate, finger-picked acoustic guitar, supported by restrained arrangements of minimalistic strings, keys and winds. Goodwin also is quick to point out Leonard Cohen as a major influence.

Most of the songs on the album are either about, or dedicated to, people who have had an impact on Goodwin. Further inspiration comes from the radical environments in which Goodwin grew up, both in Alaska and for almost a decade on a Navajo reservation in Arizona as a child where his mother worked as a midwife.

"We lived in a town in the middle of the Red Rock Desert. Twenty miles in one direction was a huge canyon. In the other direction were these valleys of red stone and rock. Where I lived in Alaska it was oceans and mountains and snow, and water and whales and bears."

A combination of both the personal and the natural can be found on the song "Johanna" in which he sings, "Please don't cry/but if you do/ I will save those paper tears/In a wooden box for you. ... I will cut them into starfish/I will cut them into whales/I will cut them into ghost ships/With fire in their sails."

On the title track he sings, "There is a place I'm trying to get to/It's right in front of me/There's a line on your body/where the horizon meets the sea."

Given the lengthy period it's taken to bring this album to fruition, Goodwin has had plenty of time and experience to draw from for a new batch of songs. He plans on recording soon and says, "Sometime next year I'll work on another album with some Portland friends."